Dis Claimer

The primary motivation for most disclaimers we encounter is to cover the asses of corporate America and to hedge those asses against litigation (ha: a “hedge of protection,” indeed [inside joke for Evangelicals]). What they should really say is “we, the reigning plutocracy, are, in our great magnanimity, allowing the artist to speak, which we’d really rather not, but, well, just so long as you know not to blame his lunatic rantings on us.”

I don’t claim enough power for corporate America to worry about me (at least not yet). And, frankly, were I that powerful, I’d be ever so happy for the fiery darts to lodge precisely in the aforementioned, ample, posterior targets. I should might not have said that, but there I did. Sigh. There goes the publishing contract.

What I do claim is that people love me–and far more than I deserve. Indeed, that’s one of the things that most amazes me about life: that mine, in particular, has been–and is–full of all sorts of inexplicable love. And, no, it’s not because “I’m good enough” or “smart enough”; it’s just, as far as I can tell, because of grace. By virtue of some great cosmic Luck, I’m surrounded by loving people. And, lest there be any doubt, the credit for their loving me definitely goes to them and not to me.

That’s why I want to take the blame–for this blog, I mean. I’m as willing to make excuses as the next guy. The truth is, in what few words I’ve so far shared in this place, I already have more than once. I sometimes think of myself as erstwhile lord of the pathetic serfdom of prefaces, explanations and cautious contextualizers. The “erstwhile” is hopeful; you will, alas, probably see more. But when I make excuses, I want never to shift blame to those gracious souls whose admonitions–if only I’d have heeded them–and whose affection–if only I’d have fully accepted it–would have delivered me from a path that ends up with excuses.

Certainly, if you read anything profound in these pages, you can attribute it to the influence of, to name just a few (and I’m quite mindful this isn’t exhaustive in any sense), my departed beloved or my parents or my kid or or my siblings or the folks I fellowship with or, truly, the beautiful Spirit of Christ Himself (and God knows I will surely plagiarize badly from all of the above and from many others). But when I offend you, blame it on me. It’s probably my fault (or yours–but let’s not press that point quite yet); it’s almost certainly not theirs.

My being an offensive ass is, in fact, further testament to the character of those people who love me, and I hope you’ll understand it that way. For instance, instead of saying “Those Christians are all idiots (or pathological or pathetic or hypocritical or, ahem, verbose). Why would I want anything to do with Christ?” you ought rather to say “It’s true, then, that the love of Christ knows no bounds; how else could He put up with such an annoying, insipid buffoon? If He puts up with that, he can surely put up with me.” I venture to say you’d do well to adopt that perspective whenever Christians speak–probably especially the ones who claim to speak on Christ’s behalf. But we’ll discuss that in greater depth in the days ahead. For now, please, as best you can, don’t blame my being an idiot or obnoxious on Jesus or on anyone but me. I assure you, I’d be worse without them. And I’d like, despite myself, somehow to honor them.

So, this is mine. I claim it–not so much with pride, but with a sheepish apology and in the hope that you won’t blame it on anyone who rather deserves your respect. I guess, then, you should call this prefatory excuse not a disclaimer but a, uh, “claimer.” (Yep. See? That “claimer” thingy–that’s all me. Unless you like it. In which case, I almost certainly stole it and, what’s worse, I’ve forgotten from whom.)

6 comments

Joel, man, I love you (emphasis on I, not to be confused with anyone else, who may or may not love you but at this point that is an irrelevant point).

I liked your description of perspective from “Those Christians are all idiots…” to “If Jesus can love that buffoon…” (of course, since you blatantly admit that you may plaigarize people and that, worse {if there is anything worse} you forget who you plaigarized from, this may actually not be your thought at all but instead be the thought some great, as of yet, unknown believer who has more insight that you and I put together, I will at least at this time credit to yourself, who, indeed, in a known believer who has more insight that you and I put together, if in fact that could happen).

OK, my mind hurts now. I am so used to putting my thoughts down in plain, simple (and very boring) language that win I try to wax lyrical I get dizzy…

I love you man. I love your humor. I love your brute honesty. I do at times tire of your apologies and want to scream “Just say it and be done with it!” and yet those apologies remind me of your tender heart.

Keep breaking down the damned dam and let those “still waters” turn into a wild, raging river full of life and energy. !!!!

Brothers, your comments are the best encouragement. Thanks for wandering with me.

Ron, I’m glad you appreciate the perspective. It (with it’s corollaries) gets me through a lot–putting up with myself and with others. As for the apologies, yeah, well, I’m sorry. 😉 They seem to turn up all of their own (though I know they arise from the dark regions of my own twisted psyche); sometimes I discover them on the page long after the fact, not having realized they were there. I’ll surely examine that more in the future, and I do like to think I’m gonna finally kill that bastard.

Jonathan, I got wordy and nerdy on my fuller reply to you. I’m putting it in another comment.

(WARNING: to some of you, the following will be as exciting as watching paint dry, so please feel free to tune out. I say that because I do want you, at other times, for the most part, to tune in.)

Jonathan, what’s ever so funny is that I actually started with “charismatics” and then probably gave as much thought to that single term as to any other in the entire post. I would generally defer to you, given my respect for your wisdom and the fact that you travel so frequently among the masses, but I’m sticking with my final answer. I tend to agree that the cliché of praying a “hedge of protection” was popularized by charismatics, but I don’t think that we can claim exclusive rights to it. I’m sure that I’d heard it from folks who would shudder (and not in a positive, quakerish way) at the appellation “charismatic,” even in my younger years but certainly in the less distant past. In any case, my attribution is based on the fact that so much of the language of charismatics has, in fact, become part of mainstream evangelicalese–including, I would argue, this particular term. Moreover, I would argue that charismatics are in many ways the face–and, perhaps, the heart–of the contemporary evangelical kingdom. Consider the recently-deposed president of the NAE and his congregation in Colorado Springs. Whether by raw numbers or some more subtle influence, I would say that at least the facade of charismania dominates evangelicalism and, frankly, I think you’re gonna have to concede one way or the other. ;-D A whole lotta folks are praying up “hedges”; I’ll leave it up to you to decide if they’re charismatics. Alls I know is that they seem to be a majority among evangelical brethren, um, not to be confused with the formally-named Evangelical Brethren.

A few other scattered shots in this general area:
I recently described a group with whom we are both familiar as “semi-charismatic.” I wondered whether I was being stingy with that description, almost to the point of great unkindness. A mutual close friend, on the other hand, thought me too liberal with it. Again, whether folks are or should be called “charismatic” (and whether that’s good or bad) is perhaps debateable. What seems more certain to me is that there is a lot of “charismatic” noise going on.

Have you seen “Friends of God” or “Jesus Camp”? Not to draw too many conclusions from a couple of documentaries, but clearly their creators considered and called their subjects “evangelicals”; I’m not even sure if the term charismatic came up (though it might have). In any case, most of the folks in these films were definitely “quacking,” at least in some respects, like charismatics.

Which raises another point: to the outside world, it must sound like hair splitting (indeed, I’m sure many think we all fit on the same political platform and share the same passion for the “Left Behind” series and the poetic musings of Helen Steiner Rice, but that’s another rant). And I’m pretty sure our differences are less significant than, say, between Sunni and Shia.

Speaking of which–rather, speaking of Protestants and Catholics (which we weren’t but I was thinking of them–and Anabaptists and Lutherans and Anglicans and Presbyterians and bapticostals et al.)–isn’t it interesting, given the history, that we’re haggling over “charismatic” and “evangelical” but “charismatic” can include Catholic? At least in the past that I remember (among the “pentecostals” of the 70s), Catholicism was anathema (not that we’d use such terms in the hinterlands–“anathema” was a term used by papists or liturgical protestants who might as well have been papist or were at least over-educated, probably both, so doubly-damned) and in some circles I sure it still is. Of course, all who call on the name of Christ are members of the “holy catholic church,” born on Pentecost and endued with the charismata, whether we practice glossolalia or not, etc. There’s a lot of interesting and fun stuff to be explored there, in terms of identity, definition, perception, ambiguity, etc. And I will almost certainly blog in the future about the term “hedge of protection” itself.

The “inside joke” comment may have been the last thing I added, on a final re-read. This is why I stop re-reading after a while–because I always seem to introduce, instead of taking away, trouble. That’s one of the reasons I like the “spit.” But, in fact, I’ve enjoyed this and hope to do it again. I was just trying to be more user-friendly in general, though I probably don’t want to be too user-friendly, ’cause then I probably wouldn’t be me. Ah, I’m of (at least) two minds. Eek, double-minded . That does explain a lot–and I maybe shouldn’t joke about it . . . or maybe I should. Shouldn’t or should, I will.